


Replica

by raritysdiamonds



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, M/M, Torture, Vivisection, how not to deal with your daddy issues, i'm sure this is NOT SCIENTIFICALLY POSSIBLE but shrugs, murder husbands zadr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 11:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raritysdiamonds/pseuds/raritysdiamonds
Summary: Dib’s never been that interested in cutting up humans - that’s more Zim’s thing. Other species are infinitely more exciting; they present more of a challenge, rewarding him with colourful blood and exotic organs. But this is different, literally taking apart the layers of what had seemed for so long an untouchable, unknowable, practically omnipotent authority. His father’s legacy - the sole reason for Dib’s existence - was a shadow he could never escape from.But now, he sees Professor Membrane for what he really is.
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Replica

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by some Discord convos from a while back (shout out to my homies in the void for your fucked up ideas, ily all). This is definitely new territory for me to say the least, but I’ve been in the headspace lately to write some dark shit I guess lol ^^;; Massive thanks to the fabulous slug for betaing for me!!
> 
> Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear what you thought! <3

Dib can’t remember the last time he looked into his father’s eyes.

When had he ever managed to hold Professor Membrane’s attention for longer than a glance, let alone be worthy of removing his patented goggles? The best he could hope for was a sigh, a shake of his head or a wrinkle of his brow before he told Dib that whatever he thought he saw, it was all in his head. There’s no such thing as Bigfoot, or aliens, or evidently a place in this crapsack of a planet where he might ever feel like he belongs. 

So he leaves them for last: after his dad’s unconscious form has been hauled onto the examination table, securely strapped down and stripped from the waist up, the locations of his vital organs lovingly mapped out. Dib wants him awake for the next part, wants to see his face when the realisation dawns that his precious science won’t save him from what’s about to happen. 

He pulls Membrane’s goggles off just as he starts to come around, the robotic fingers of his left hand twitching. Dib stands over him, watching his eyes flicker open, hazy and unfocused. They’re the exact same shade of amber as his own - like looking into a mirror - and he smiles.

“Hey, Dad.”

Of course, even in this most precarious of positions, the Professor manages to stay infuriatingly calm. It’s not long before he’s talking again, trying to  _ reason _ with Dib in that voice that sets his teeth on edge, like he’s just another problem to be solved. He promises that if Dib lets him go now, he won’t turn him in, he‘s not even mad at him. He knows Dib isn’t himself, this isn’t his son. It’s not too late, they‘ll make him better, they’ll get him help -

“ _ Help? _ ” Dib’s almost managed to tune him out like an annoying background buzz, purposefully taking his time to lay out his tools and pull on his gloves, but that’s when he snaps. “Oh, I  _ bet _ you’d help, Dad - why don’t you just shove me back into the crazy house? That way I can’t embarrass you any more, and you don’t have to tell the world about your  _ poor, insane son _ . Just hidden away like a dirty secret. Your failed experiment.”

Membrane opens his mouth to protest or plead, but whatever he’s about to say collapses into a sickeningly satisfying groan when Dib picks up his scalpel, making a clean, precise incision across his chest. After all the bigger, more impressive specimens he’s vivisected, it slices through his father’s soft flesh like butter, muscle and sinew cleaving to cold steel until he’s nicely opened up, organs throbbing and glistening with blood under the spotlight.

“Huh…” Dib makes another cut, carefully peeling back the flesh with a gloved hand; Membrane jerks, tugging at his bonds, which earns him a jab to an exposed lung. “Not now, Dad, I’m trying to concentrate.” He examines his subject for a moment, tilting his head with the same sigh of disappointment he’s been on the receiving end of countless times. “So far, so normal. Kinda boring, actually. When I was little, I had a couple theories that maybe you were actually all robot. Or even,” he huffs out a bitter, ironic chuckle, “an  _ alien!  _ Plot twist of the century, right? But I guess you really are just the same as the rest of them.”

Dib’s never been that interested in cutting up humans - that’s more Zim’s thing. Other species are infinitely more exciting; they present more of a challenge, rewarding him with colourful blood and exotic organs. But this is different, literally taking apart the layers of what had seemed for so long an untouchable, unknowable, practically omnipotent authority. His father’s legacy - the sole reason for Dib’s existence - was a shadow he could never escape from. But now, he sees Membrane for what he really is. Just another body: helpless, incapable of doing anything to protect the planet he supposedly cares about so much. He could almost feel sorry for him, if it wasn’t for -

“Dib!” A familiar voice jerks him out of his thoughts as the lab doors slide open. “I demand you come and marvel at my ingeniousness -  _ oooh! _ ” Zim breaks into an adorably sadistic grin as he takes in the scene before him, his antennae perking up. “You finally apprehended the parental unit!” He scampers over to join Dib, puffing out his chest and preening a little as if he’d personally giftwrapped Membrane himself. Which he kind of did by letting him live so long, he supposes.

“Ah, you worm babies and your  _ organs _ ,” Zim chuckles as he slides in up to Dib’s side, eyeing Membrane with a combination of disgust and curious nostalgia. “Remember when I had three spleens? Good times. Good, horrible times.”

Membrane thrashes and gasps like a gutted fish, somehow managing to force a word out through gritted teeth: “ _ You… _ ” He heaves on the table, lungs visibly shaking with the effort as he twists his head to glare at Zim, “d-did - this - to him…” 

Zim, naturally, does what he does best: ignores him entirely. “Zim dislikes the Dib-parent’s noises,” he murmurs, leaning his head on Dib’s arm. “Can we cut out his tongue? I promised GIR a snack.”

“Later.” Dib touches a hand to Zim’s lower back, his veil of detached amusement softening into a genuine smile as he turns to look at him. When his boyfriend’s had over a century’s head start on taking apart various life forms, can you really blame him for wanting to show off a little? “I saved plenty for you though, if you wanna grab a toy and help out…”

Zim lets out a happy little chirp, grabbing for a knife as if he’s helping himself to a slice of cake. He’s not quite as neat, but more than makes up for it in enthusiasm as he carves a large ‘Z’, ‘i’ and ‘M’ into Membrane’s toned stomach. Dib watches him with a fond smile for a moment before turning his attention back to his subject. 

“What, you think this was  _ Zim’s _ idea? You must be losing it in your old age, Dad - he’s just a regular human, remember? Nothing but an ordinary, green-skinned foreign boy...with no ears…” He gives Zim a quick scratch behind the antennae; his soft, pleased purr provides a more palatable contrast to Membrane’s groans and gasps, unfinished pleas for mercy he gave up the right to long ago. “This is all me - just how you made me, aren’t you proud? I thought you always wanted me to take an interest in good old-fashioned human biology!”

Membrane’s noises are getting weaker as Dib and Zim dig into him in tandem; under normal circumstances he probably would have passed out by now, but a few injections of some potent alien adrenaline are enough to keep him conscious, aware of everything that’s happening to him but helpless to stop it. Dib needs this; for once, maybe the first time  _ ever _ , he has his father’s undivided attention. He has no choice but to listen to Dib, to feel every twist of his scalpel, to finally take him  _ seriously _ . To know how it feels to be truly powerless, knowing your best will never be enough. 

"It’s too bad it had to end like this,” he muses, a pang of something dangerously close to regret tugging deep in his gut. For a moment, none of it feels real; it’s like he’s outside of his body, watching all this happen to someone else, someone he doesn’t recognise. “Maybe, if you’d just listened…”

Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, behind a bolted door, there’s a voice screaming at him to stop, this is wrong, this is  _ evil _ . He can’t be doing these things, this isn’t him, it isn’t  _ Dib _ \- 

But who is it?

He sighs and shakes his head, a bittersweet smile playing on his lips as he steals another glance at Zim, prodding at various organs with no real aim. He remembers how he used to imagine this playing out: Zim on the table with his alien guts spilled out for the world to see, his father by his side, beaming with pride. 

He knows better than that childish fantasy now. When Dib and Zim come together, he’s better, he’s  _ more _ . He has everything the world and his so-called  _ family  _ would forever deny him: respect, acceptance, power,  _ love _ . Turned out he’d just been looking in the wrong places. Earth was never worth saving - but Zim, what he has with Zim, everything they are together, that’s worth more than even Membrane’s gigantic science-brain could ever comprehend. 

“But that was always too much to ask, wasn’t it?” Dib’s voice is eerily calm as he reaches for the bone separator; he manages not to flinch at each crisp  _ snap _ , nor the guttural moans that accompany them as he systematically slices through his dad’s ribcage. “You never wanted me - you wanted  _ you _ . A perfect replica, your perfect little clone to carry on your perfect legacy and never set a foot out of line or have the audacity to  _ think for himself! _ ” The words come out as a snarl, years of frustration and resentment bubbling to the surface and boiling over, spewing out of him like a particularly bitter but perversely satisfying kind of bile. Membrane shakes his head frantically, though Dib’s not sure whether it’s denial or blind desperation to escape the torment, reduced to his basest instincts. 

“You just couldn’t stand the thought that for once,  _ you might not have all the answers _ .”

With all those ribs out of the way, he can see the real prize: his father’s heart. It’s a lot smaller than he imagined, squishy and slippery, vulnerable as he wraps his fingers around it. Dib can feel it throbbing, and his own heart quickens, almost in sync. Like father, like son.

He squeezes once, hard. Membrane wheezes, an almost comically pitiful noise, like a broken accordion.

“Do you have any idea how much I used to wish that I was different, that I was the son you wanted? What a difference it could’ve made if you’d been there for me, had my back, believed in me - even  _ pretended _ to believe me, even just once?” Dib’s voice cracks, raw, ugly emotion rising in his chest as his grip tightens, cutting off the blood flow. He watches the colour drain from his father’s face as he fights for what could be his last breath.

The  _ power  _ \- it’s all-consuming, overwhelming, dizzying when he looks down at his dad’s heart, his life literally in Dib’s hands. He could end it all right now. Tear away the life of the man who gave him his. Finally take back control. 

He can do it.

He can’t do it.

He starts to slip away, not realising how much his hands are shaking, no longer sure those hands are even his. Nothing feels real, his former focus eluding him as Membrane’s heart slips from his grasp. He doesn’t remember what he was doing with it. 

_ What is he doing? _

He looks at his father’s face, twisted in agony and anguish and raw, genuine  _ fear  _ that can’t be real, his real dad would never. Never look back at him with real tears streaming down his cheeks as he mouths words like  _ please _ and  _ son _ .

Dib feels nothing.

He feels nothing until another pair of gloved hands slide over his own, pulling him away from Membrane, back to reality. 

“Leave the meat monkey,” Zim urges, low and husky in his ear as he rises up on his PAK legs to shamelessly rub himself up against Dib, letting him feel his arousal. He’s tired of their new toy, hungry to reclaim his human’s attention as he nuzzles and bites at Dib’s neck. “We can dispose of him later. You have  _ better _ things to do with your time.”

It’s always been easy, to get lost in Zim. To let Zim fill his mind up with every conflicting desire and emotion; he’s been there since he was twelve, has taken up residency, like Dib ever really had a choice in the matter. It’s too easy to lift Zim up onto the table, even when his dad is  _ right there _ , groaning, bleeding, dying. There’s no room for anyone else because Zim  _ wants _ him. He kisses like he’s devouring Dib’s soul, wraps his legs around his waist like he’ll never let go and makes the most beautiful, needy noises when he slides down onto Dib’s cock. 

Zim brings him back to the moment, and in this moment, Dib has everything; he is wanted, he is  _ loved _ for every despicable act that would have made him a monster in his home planet’s eyes. Dib is celebrated, and his father, his maker, his prisoner, is forgotten. 

It doesn’t sink in until long after, a few days, maybe more, time is pretty much meaningless now. Somehow they manage to patch Membrane up and move him to one of the suspended animation tubes to make room for new experiments. Zim says they preserve the subject’s consciousness even if their physical form perishes, so it can be transferred to another body if future experimentation is necessary. 

Dib doesn’t know if that’s true. He doesn’t ask. His father’s body floats, hanging limp, and he tries not to look. 

He can almost forget he’s there, most days, because it still doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t even feel real when the machine fails and they toss the dead weight out of the airlock, lost to the void of space.

It never feels real until it does, until he makes the mistake of letting himself sleep and wakes up shaking and sweating, suffocating guilt and fear slamming into him like a freight train and twisting up his insides until he can barely breathe. He can’t close his eyes because his dad will be there, waiting to remind him what he’s done.

He can try, but he can never forget the last time he looked into his father’s eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feedback is always appreciated <3


End file.
